


Toxic

by Zelos



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Closure, F/M, Missing Scene, Moving On, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-07 08:36:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13430976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zelos/pseuds/Zelos
Summary: The corner of his mouth lifted. “Well, it’s not a wedding ring.”She hated him for that, hated him more than she thought was possible to hate another human being, and some part of her was deeply, viciously grateful.Lydia and Jackson support, enable, and move on from each other. Set between seasons two and three.





	Toxic

They took Mr Argent’s car. He had insisted adult authority would lend weight to their alibis.

Lydia and Jackson stood, hand in hand and shivering, as the Argents shoved their weaponry aside to make room in the back seats. Mr Argent dug a bag out from behind the arrow quiver, the machine gun, and the cases of—were those _grenades?_

“Here.” Mr Argent tossed a sweater and a pair of trackpants at Jackson, who caught them by reflex. “Put these on.”

Jackson blinked.

The man smiled with very little humour. “Precautionary habit. I don’t like wearing bloodstained clothes, even at night. It arouses suspicion if we’re stopped.”

What could anyone say to that?

Jackson woodenly pulled on the clothes. Allison and Scott politely looked away. Stiles did not.

“It might be better if…” Mr Argent trailed off, glancing down at Lydia and Jackson’s clasped hands. “Never mind. Stiles, Scott, meet us at the hospital. I’ll call ahead to let them know we’re coming.”

Jackson’s hand clamped around hers, so tight her entire arm was numb. She squeezed back, nails piercing flesh, his skin healing around her fingertips. His hand was ice-cold in hers, and no matter how hot Allison blasted the car heater neither of them could stop shaking.

Fifteen minutes into the drive, Jackson finally spoke, low and halting and through clenched teeth: “What are we going to tell my parents?”

Mr Argent glanced at them in the rearview mirror. “We found you wandering in a fugue state, similar to Lydia’s. You don’t remember what happened. We were very lucky to find you after only a few hours instead of a few days.”

Between the Whittemores and the Martins that hospital would be sued into oblivion. Lydia could not bring herself to care.

The remainder of the drive was silent.

 

Mr Argent physically pried them apart in hospital parking lot. “Allison, you’re with me. Jackson, let’s go.”

“Dad, Dad, no no no _wait_.” Allison dragged her father to a stop. “I’m staying with Lydia. Just—just say I was, was with Lydia tonight and the guys picked us up together.”

Allison’s father looked between them. Jackson’s face spasmed but he remained silent. In the distance, tires screeched.

Whatever Mr Argent saw must have convinced him. He sighed. “Fine. Jackson, come on.” The two disappeared into the ER, Jackson stumbling a little in his bare feet. The girls held each other up, watching with blurry eyes.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” Allison’s arm was a vise around Lydia’s shoulders, and really, what was Allison sorry about? Sorry she never told the truth, even when Lydia asked point-blank? Sorry she gutted that other baby wolf? Sorry for being born into a family of hunters who all shot to kill?

 _Sorry_ was too small a word for the weight it carried.

Allison was still whispering by the time the boys showed up. Stiles hooked his arm through Lydia’s and Scott fell into step on Allison’s other side. The four of them half-supported, half-dragged each other to the glass doors in a four-wide line.

The entire ER was in chaos. It was easy to find Jackson: Chris Argent stood to the side of half-closed curtains while an entire battalion of doctors and nurses crowded around the bed. Jackson sat on the bed, stripped to the waist, his eyes closed like he was in pain. The Whittemores kept pushing the medical staff aside to hug Jackson, sobbing the entire time.

“Mr Whittemore, Mrs Whittemore,” a frazzled doctor tried to get the Whittemores’ attention, “we really need to admit your son for—”

Mr Whittemore grabbed the doctor by the front of his coat. “ _You told me he was dead!_ ”

“I understand your upset, but to be safe—”

“ _I will sue every last one of—_ ”

“Excuse me— _excuse me!_ ” One nurse cupped her hands around her mouth. “Everyone please just _stop!_ ”

The entire ER—even those not crowded around Jackson’s bed—froze. Scott winced and mumbled “mom voice” under his breath.

“Thank you.” Mrs McCall opened her mouth, glanced around, and sighed. “Let’s have some privacy, okay?” She yanked the curtains closed, cramming the crowd into the space between bed and curtain like sardines in a can. Lydia was shoved roughly into Mr Argent’s side, something hard digging into her hip. She squeaked.

She was pretty sure that was a gun.

Mrs McCall turned to Jackson’s parents. “Mr Whittemore, Mrs Whittemore, I really think it’d be in Jackson’s best interest if we admitted him into the hospital for at least a few nights.

Mrs Whittemore recovered first. “ _Like hell_ —you said he was _dead_ , and then you _lost_ him— _how could we leave him with you?!_ ”

“I totally understand your concern. Legal will be in contact with you shortly. But in the meanwhile, if there _is_ anything wrong with him—” Mrs McCall glanced at Jackson, looking whole and hale and distinctly lacking puncture wounds “—it’s best to find that out _now_ , isn’t it? The nearest hospital is a fifty minute drive away, and we haven’t even begun to arrange transfer. At the very least, shouldn’t we get more than just a pulse-ox on him?”

It took another ten minutes and multitudes of (legal and lethal) threats before the Whittemores reluctantly agreed to admit Jackson. His mother squeezed his hand. “I promise, we’ll be right here with you the entire—”

Jackson finally opened his eyes. “I want Lydia.”

“What?” Mr Whittemore looked between his son and Lydia like he just noticed Lydia for the first time. “Lydia?”

“Honey, I thought you two were—”

Jackson blinked. His eyes focused briefly on her, then back to his parents. For the first time since the warehouse he looked like there was life behind his eyes. “I. Want. Lydia. _Only_ Lydia.”

Lydia stayed.

 

They didn’t talk at all during that first night. Lydia sat beside his bed, her hand in his. After ten minutes Jackson dragged her into the bed with him; they crushed into each other, faces buried in each other’s shoulders, and shook.

The nurses did not comment. They knew a lost battle when they saw one. They had “lost” these two same patients and “misdiagnosed” one as dead. If Lydia had declared a separate rave on every floor of the hospital with a striptease at the nurse’s station they probably would’ve let her do it.

Jackson’s parents came in during the mornings. Lydia wisely made herself scarce—no point watching the clusterfuck. Besides, she still had school, and a life, and something called _bathing_. Hell would freeze over before she deigned to shower at the hospital again.

By the second night, Lydia was brave enough to ask, “how much do you remember?”

Jackson stared at her, and his eyes flickered a bright, wolfsbane blue. “Enough.”

 

Obviously werewolf myths got a few things wrong—for one thing, Beacon Hills’ werewolves looked more like _trolls_ than _wolves_ —but the one thing they generally agreed on was that the cursed turned into monsters on the full moon.

Evidently not _just_ the full moon, but.

Three minutes after the last bell, as Stiles was getting into his piece of crap Jeep and Scott was unlocking his even crappier bike, Lydia cornered them both. “What happens to you on a full moon?”

It was hard to say who had a worse _oh shit_ face. “I, uh, shift.”

“Is that all?”

“I also get the urge to kill everyone in sight.”

Floodlights blinding her eyes. Her dress torn to ribbons. Harsh breathing above her, foul and sticky, as fangs pierced her side.

She felt the blood drain from her face. “What…did you do?” It came out thin.

Scott took a deep breath. “The first time, Stiles handcuffed me to a radiator.”

“Did that work?”

“No. I nearly killed him. And…other people, once I got out. Derek nearly beat my brains in before I snapped out of it.”

She steadied herself on Scott’s bike and tried, unsuccessfully, to keep her voice from trembling. “And the second time?”

“Allison locked me into a chest freezer with chains.”

“Did _that_ work?”

“No. Well, it didn’t keep me in when I really wanted out. I wasn’t—trying to kill anyone at that point.”

Lydia took a breath. It rattled in her chest. “How does Derek control his pups?”

Stiles pulled a face. “Given his last voicemail, I don’t think he can.” Scott elbowed him and Stiles hurriedly added, “but that’s why they have me. See, I have a plan.”

“A plan.”

“We’ll take him—take everyone—to Derek’s house.”

“Derek’s house?!”

Stiles raised his eyebrows. “Do you know of anywhere else private and also strong enough to hold three rampaging werewolves?”

“Derek’s _house_ ,” she spat the words, “is _falling down around his ears._ ”

Scott stepped between them before she could tear out Stiles’ throat with her teeth. “There’s a basement. It’s…fortified.” Something flickered across his face, but all he said was, “it’ll hold.”

Lydia hissed a breath between her teeth. “I want to go.”

“ _Hell no,_ ” Stiles shot back just as Scott said, much more gently, “Lydia, no.”

“You are _not_ —”

“Lydia. _Lydia_.” Scott caught her shoulders, just as quickly jumping back. “Sorry. I mean—look, Isaac controlled himself last month. I…think I have control. Derek is fine. It’s just Jackson. It’s three against one. He’ll be fine, I promise. We won’t let him go anywhere.”

She stared right into his eyes, enunciating every word. “If _anything_ happens to him, your funeral pyre will make Peter Hale’s look like a _matchstick_ in comparison.”

Lydia spent the next two weeks looking up lycanthropy in every language she knew. But when the closest thing to a werewolf sedative was from _Harry Potter_ , her options were limited. Most suggestions were aimed at _killing_ the wolf rather than _taming_ the wolf.

 _You fucking idiot._ Jackson, for choosing this; herself, for caring.

 

Stiles had promised up and down and sideways that he was not going anywhere near the Hale house either because “I have a vested interest in living long enough to drink. Besides, what am I gonna do, be their scratching post?”

He was lying, of course. But she also knew that Derek wouldn’t let her in his basement even if he would for Stiles. And all bravado aside, Derek’s murdering uncle would probably be there and she didn’t want to share a planet with the monster ever again, never mind a basement. “The Argents don’t have anything?”

Stiles was silent for a moment. “The last thing they used that werewolves didn’t shrug off? I came _this close_ to cutting off Derek’s arm to save his life. So no, I’d rather not touch anything the Argents have.”

Put that way, well.

Allison offered to stay over, but Lydia chased her off a little after midnight. It wasn’t quite _divided loyalties_ , per se, but…it sort of was. Allison broke up with Scott too, after all.

They could go back after all this was over, one way or another.

The moon glowed huge and silver through her open window. There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky. In the distance, she thought she could hear wolves howl.

Sleep was impossible. She painted her nails. Checked her phone. Stiles texted her _everythign ok_ every hour on the hour (same typo every time). She was secretly grateful for that.

Some time after Stiles’ fourth text, she dozed off. She woke to a gentle tapping and the most goddamn awful crink in her neck.

“What—ow—shit” Blearily she swiped at her phone. “Four twenty in the—”

 _Everythign ok_ seared her eyeballs. She froze, instantly awake, panic and memories and adrenaline pounding.

Another tap at the window, harder this time. “Lydia?”

“Jackson?” She scrambled to her feet and yanked open the window; he tumbled gracelessly in and thudded on the floor. “ _Jackson?_ ”

He didn’t answer, so she scrambled to her feet again, felt along the wall for the light switch. The light snapped on with a low hum, flooding the room in soft white. Jackson blinked up from the floor, looking pale and exhausted and wan. They stared at each other for a moment.

“You used to use _doors_ —oh.” Her eyes caught the blood striping his hands, fingertip to wrist. There suddenly wasn’t enough air in the room.

Jackson looked down at his hands. “Don’t worry, it’s mine.” He blinked heavily, considering. “Mostly. I scratched McCall a few times.” That had a shadow of his old swagger, maybe the only part of him that did.

Her heart stuttered and resumed its beat. She stared at him. Her mouth opened and closed a few times. Eventually what came out was, “don’t get _bloodstains_ on my carpet.”

He made a ragged noise that could’ve been a laugh, a sigh, or nothing at all. There was a box of tissues on the floor, leftover from her pedicure. He took a tissue and started wiping ineffectively at his hands.

“Oh, for—that’s dried.” She wobbled over, fell rather than knelt beside him. “That won’t come off like that.”

“Sorry.” Jackson’s voice was low and husky and sounded entirely unlike him. His hair stuck up in odd directions—he who never left the house unkempt, every hair and every thread in place, perfect as a performance. “I…I just…” He took a trembling breath and finally managed, more to himself than to her, “I’m okay.”

Dried blood to his wrists and flesh under his nails. Who would be okay? Rips in his shirt, the skin beneath unmarred.

Lydia pressed her hand to her side and thought she could feel fangs.

Who would be okay?

She reached up to his face to swipe away tears, or maybe the idea of tears. No one was crying.

After a long moment, Jackson swallowed audibly and pulled back. “What happened with you and Peter Hale?” It was the first time he asked about her, beyond being immune to the bite.

She laughed; it broke, jagged like glass. “I don’t know. I raised him from the dead, and I don’t know how, or why, or _why me_.”

Fingers—fingers, not claws—tangled with hers. Dried blood flaked and caught under her manicure in splotches of rusty red.

She leaned into him, and he into her. He was more solid than she remembered.

 

Lydia’s grades were perfect. Jackson’s went into freefall. His GPA dropped 1.8 points within the span of a month and a half.

None of the teachers said anything. Could they blame him for not concentrating on academics after a near-death (or back from death) experience? Even Harris couldn’t work up a cutting remark at Jackson’s empty seat.

There weren’t any more lacrosse practices for Jackson to blow off. He quit the swim team. Rumour has it that he developed a new aversion to water—and most people. The only thing that stayed the same was his temper—he nearly put Danny through a wall after Danny asked him if he was okay one too may times. People left him alone after that.

Somehow that meant they bothered Lydia instead. They didn’t ask her—no, that’d be too _direct_. It was sideways looks and cutting remarks in her earshot like “maybe the other whack-job would know.” The vultures circled around the corpses of their king and queen. At least Danny actually talked _to_ her, rather than about her or at her.

Danny wandered off to class. Lydia stared at his back, eyes narrowed. “Seriously, do I look like his mother? Or his keeper?”

“They probably think you’re still together.”

Lydia glared. “ _He_ dumped _me_. Publicly. Did I mention he humiliated, harangued, and harassed me too?”

Allison shrugged carefully. “But you are his anchor.”

If _anchor_ entailed _fucking his brains out_ , which, okay, was the only other thing that stayed the same. They weren’t even _dating_ anymore. Lydia and Jackson never had that twitterpated moon-eyed soppiness (and if she was honest, she envied Scott and Allison a little for it), but they used to spend time together. Nowadays they didn’t eat lunch together, or watch movies together, or even talk to each other much in the hallways. She did her own thing; he did his—whatever that was. Probably involved too much time at the gym and…wolfing out in the woods.

The most she could claim was that she actually made sure he was still alive every now and then—which, admittedly, was probably more than what anyone else did. Then again, Derek Hale was apparently the de facto mentor for this pack of idiots and he had done _such_ a bang-up job of watching out for his entourage, hadn’t he?

She was heading up the stairs to Jackson’s house when she heard yelling. Jackson’s voice travelled clear through the (closed) door and the triple-paned windows, well above a shout.

“Jackson?” She took the last steps two at a time, fumbling in her purse for her key.

“—am _not_ going to see a mother _fucking_ —”

“ _Jackson!_ ” She flung open the door—

“— _SHRINK!_ ”

Lydia shrieked as something smashed against the wall beside her head, black plastic bits flying. One piece grazed her cheek. She froze, heeled boots poised on the threshold.

Jackson stared at her from across his living room, face a mask of surprise. “Lydia?” His eyes flickered like a bad TV.

It took her several seconds to gasp enough air to respond. “What the hell is _wrong_ with you?!”

“I…” He looked honestly taken aback like he forgot she was coming, like he had been abandoned here—the whole of the silence, the empty house. “I was on the phone.”

She looked down at the remains of his phone, cracked screen and shattered case. “On the phone.”

“I was talking with—”

“Your parents, yes, I heard, and so did the next county over.” The Whittemores had learned that communicating via electronic means, while impersonal, also meant that they’d keep their heads attached to their necks. Jackson went through a lot of phones lately. “Don’t have a _meltdown_.”

“You—” He gaped at her as she stormed in, kicked the door shut, crossed the room. He yelled at the back of her head: “ _Meltdown?!_ ”

She swung to glare at him, hands on hips. “Does seeing a shrink really require a tantrum?”

Anger flared in his eyes, bright electric blue, and god, she dreamed about those eyes, had nightmares about those eyes. If she lived a hundred years she’d see them every time she screamed. “You think the school shrink can—I _killed_ people!”

“I resurrected a murdering werewolf,” she hissed back. “ _You’re not that special._ ” She ticked them off on her fingers, perfectly manicured nails: “Instrument of evil, check. Wandering around naked in the woods, check. Knowing something is wrong with you but without a clue what? _Check!_ ”

There was a silence so long they were both drowning in it, ragged breaths and downcast eyes. Jackson hugged himself, swaying where he stood. The wolfsbane blue of his eyes faded back to slate.

When he spoke again, it was very quiet, and shook. "Does it help?"

“No.” She raised her chin to stare at him in the eye; what they saw scared them both. “But you’re not me.”

 

“I’m going to London.”

She looked at him over her shoulder, her hair spilling on the sheets. Considered for a moment. “Touring the palace? Not your style.”

Jackson’s jaw was tight, but he looked her straight in the eye. He owed her that much at least. “I’m _moving_ to London.” His eyes were a storm, his words thick like tar. “I don’t know when I’ll be back. _If_ I’ll be back.”

His parents probably wanted to do this earlier. Maybe they should’ve. It wasn’t like Jackson’s academics the last few months had been anything to write home about.

“It rains too much there.” She sniffed, rolled over to find her clothes.

“Lydia…”

Fuck the clothes. “I’m taking a shower.” She slipped out of the bed and headed for the door, padding over to the linen closet for a fresh towel.

He chased her out, stopped before they touched. The foot between them was a gulf, like their words sprouted bars and ceilings until they were cloistered in their own existences, together but apart. She could smell sweat and toothpaste, his cologne mingled with her perfume. At least his parents were out. “I should’ve said something before two weeks out.”

She looked up from her selection of identical white towels. “Why didn’t you?”

His jaw worked, but his expression was tired. “I didn’t want to fight.”

“Why would we fight?” It wasn’t a wedding ring, after all. And she didn’t _want_ it to be.

Jackson gave her a long look, the one that infuriated her more than anything, because goddamn they could read each other, push each other’s buttons so hard they’d leave holes behind.

“Guess I’ll be valedictorian,” she said, and closed the bathroom door in his face.

As the hot water peppered her skin, Lydia took stock of the situation. Jackson in London, high tea and King’s Road and Buckingham Palace. Herself in Beacon Hills, with murderous werewolves and renegade hunters and Christ, not even someone to watch _The Notebook_ with. Allison probably would, but it wasn’t the same.

Lydia raised her face toward the showerhead, felt the water dampen her face. It was not tears. It was not grief.

She used his shampoo.

 

She did not see him off. No way was she driving to the airport for the sole _privilege_ of seeing him leave, _please_.

Jackson stopped by instead. His parents stayed in the car. Did he make them stay? Probably. Wasn’t like it’d matter. It’s not like they’d be talking about anything secret. They didn’t talk much these days, settled into silence when they weren’t fucking. But the silence did have an ease that had never been before.

They never really talked about what happened. Maybe they couldn’t. Maybe it was just as well. Sometimes words were like bodies—best left buried.

“Hey,” he said awkwardly when she answered the door.

She stared back up at him, eyes steady and voice level. “Hi.”

His head tilted. He looked like he wanted to invite himself in. He looked like he wanted to say something. He did neither. She waited with patience she didn’t have.

He was letting bugs in.

Finally Jackson moved—twitched, really. He slowly, slowly leaned in, uncharacteristically careful like he expected to be turned down, and kissed her—softly, tenderly, like a bruise. He stepped back just as slowly, something distant in slate blue eyes. “I guess this is it.”

“Yeah,” but it didn’t have the crispness she was aiming for.

Another step back, two rapid blinks, and he turned to leave.

“Jackson.” He froze but did not turn around. She reached him in two strides, her head twisting around the chain, pressed the key into his hand before he could respond. “Here.”

He stared at it for a moment, then looked back up to stare at her, and just as suddenly shoved it back into her hand. “Don’t need it.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, a long hard look, hard enough to keep her eyes from stinging. “It was important.”

The corner of his mouth lifted. “Well, it’s not a wedding ring.”

She hated him for that, hated him more than she thought was possible to hate another human being, and some part of her was deeply, viciously grateful.

They stared at each other across the gulf, and his fractured smile looked like a ghost. He kissed her again, barely there and already gone, swallowed, then strode down her front steps.

She closed her eyes—she _would not_ watch him leave. She could feel her mascara running, oozing black, black, black like the evil that poured from a werewolf’s bite.

She listened to his footsteps to the car, the car door slam. Listened to the purr of the engine, pulling away. The key burned in her hands, hot in the summer sun.

It was enough.

**Author's Note:**

> ...I realize yes, the support mostly went one way. That said, for all of Lydia’s very legit trauma she never killed anyone by end of season two, so I figure Jackson would be on a whole other level of Not Dealing.


End file.
